by Rachel Liu

JD’s third E-Space store will open in Shenglong Square, a business area in Weiyang District, north of Xi’an, which was announced on Mar. 9. The store will be about 42,000 square meters and carry 200,000 kinds of products online and offline.

This is JD’s third E-Space store after the Chongqing store opened in 2019, and the Hefei store that will open this year.

The JD E-Space store focuses on offering unique and immersive experiences, allowing customers to interact fully with state-of-the-art, innovative, and smart products. The stores feature popular and best-selling products from electronics, home appliances, and digital accessories to health, fitness and beauty products, office supplies and more. The Chongqing store has become a “must-visit” place for local customers and topped the most favored fashion and entertainment location among local residents.

Xi’an is the largest city in Northwest China with over 10 million residents. The city’s GDP surpassed RMB 1 trillion yuan in 2020 and has massive consumption potential. The JD E-Space store will bring a new shopping experience to local customers.

“Since launching in Xi’an in 2014, the Shenglong Square has been bringing new stores and brands to local residents,” said Yuan Cheng, its general manager. “We hope that we can work with JD E-Space to further upgrade the lifestyle and shopping experience for the neighborhood.”

“JD E-Space is not just for shopping, but also provides an immersive experience for new products and technology,” said Xing Jing, vice president of JD 5Star. “We believe the experiential model is the trend of the next decade, and will attract the new generation.”

(liuchang61@jd.com)

by Ella Kidron

JD Big Data Research Institute and Chinese data services enterprise Tianyancha partnered to release a report on lower-tier markets trends on Mar. 9, 2021. The report comes just as rural revitalization is front and center in China’s annual Two Sessions meeting.

Here are a few highlights:

Looking at stats from just after the Chinese New Year holiday, only 47% of people who took trains from tier 1-2 cities to 3-6 tier cities bought return tickets after the festival period. The figure reached 82% for people who bought air tickets. Among the reasons for this trend are that people staggered their visits or prolonged time spent at home before returning. Another possibility, however, is that they are planning to stay and work in their hometowns.

This is indicated by a piece of data: One week before the Spring Festival, among local orders placed by consumers under age 45 in lower-tier markets, shopping frequency was 1.5 times higher after the Spring Festival than the two weeks before it. The main categories for high frequency purchases included work and production related items, home furnishing and decoration, auto and more.

Another indication of the fact that conditions in people’s hometowns in lower-tier markets is improving is the reduction in the number of migrant children enrolled in tier 1 and 2 cities, despite the fact that enrollment of primary school-age students across the country has continued to rise since 2016. This is further verified by consumption data from JD regarding children’s books.

A comparison of children’s books and auxiliary teaching materials consumption across the country, in particular the annual order data from February 2016-2021, indicates that the growth rate of remote orders (where the sender and recipient city are different) in lower-tier cities have seen a downward trend, only increasing sharply in 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

On the other hand, the growth rate of local orders in this category in mid-to-lower tier markets has increased maintained a high growth rate, and the demand for these products in lower-tier markets has been at its highest in the last five years. This is an indication that in recent years more migrant workers have moved their children’s future education plans from the big cities to their hometowns, possibly also reflecting an overall improvement in the employment opportunities available closer to home.

(ella@jd.com)

by Hui Zhang

Decathlon, the world’s largest sporting goods retailer, opened a flagship store on JD on Mar. 6, offering more than 80 kinds of sports-related products covering a wide range of activities from hiking and climbing, swimming and running, to skiing and surfing, road cycling, equestrian and more.

Due to the impact of the pandemic, Decathlon decided to expand its sales channels by working with JD.com to reach more Chinese consumers. JD’s strong customer base and big data analysis will assist Decathlon precisely target its potential consumers. At the same time, JD’s nationwide logistics network will greatly improve Decathlon’s distribution efficiency.

“Based on Decathlon’s diversity of sports products and its complete supply chain advantages, both sides will enhance cooperation in bringing a unique sports shopping experience for JD’s consumers,” said a representative from JD’s sports business unit.

Decathlon, a French retailer, has over 1,647 stores in 59 countries and regions. It officially entered China in 2003, opening its first offline store in Asia.

(zhanghui36@jd.com)